Applications panel - Set how Firefox handles different types of files

This article describes the settings that are available in the Applications panel of the Firefox OptionsPreferences
window.

The Applications panel allows you to choose how Firefox handles different types of files. For each content type Firefox recognizes, you may select an action that Firefox will use to handle that type of content. You can view the file content in the Firefox window with Firefox for natively supported formats (Podcast, Web Feed, PDF)) or with a plugin, open the file with an application installed on your computer (or in some cases, with a web application), or you can save the file to your downloads folder.

To change how Firefox handles a file type in the list, click on its name to select it. Open the drop-down menu to select the download action you want Firefox to use:

Preview in Firefox: Select it if you want Firefox to display the content. It's only applicable to a limited number of types, those that Firefox is able to decode such as Podcast, Video Podcast, Web Feed, and PDF.

Note: A particular configuration of the server hosting a PDF document could force the download of the file (disabling the preview).

Choose a feature or plugin: If you want a feature or a plugin in Firefox to handle the type, and one is available, select it from the drop-down menu.

Choose an application: To choose a local or web application to handle a type, select the application from the drop-down menu. If you want a local application that is not in the menu to handle the type, select Use other… from the drop-down menu and point Firefox to its location.

Save on your computer: Some file types can be saved to your computer. Select Save File from the menu for one of these file types to have Firefox save that type of file to the location specified in the Downloads settings.

Some file formats may have multiple content types, also called Internet media types, (for instance, audio/wav and audio/x-wav for Wave Sound) that you will need to change. Also, when a plugin is available to handle a content type and you choose a different action for that type, Firefox will only take your chosen action when you access the type directly. For example, you may choose to open these files with a media player application instead of using the plugin that is set to open it. In such cases, your chosen application will be used for file downloads but, when the content type is embedded inside a web page, Firefox will continue to use the plugin to handle the content type.

Note: Some file formats, such as MP3, are handled by the browser and the download action cannot be changed. For more information about natively supported audio and video formats in Firefox, see HTML5 audio and video in Firefox.

Adding, removing, or editing a download action

The Applications panel has limited functionality for editing. You can change the action for an existing file type but you cannot add or remove file types. Entries are added automatically when you download files and select actions for them. See Adding download actions.

Note: You may get problems if you download a file that is labeled with the wrong Internet media type. There is no way to identify or delete a bad entry in the list. If this happens you may need to look at the file mimeTypes.rdf in your Firefox profile folder. Deleting the mimeTypes.rdf will reset all download actions to the default settings.